Is it best to mordant and dye the wool before carding, after carding, or once its been spun? (EDIT + REALISATION)

Is it best to mordant and dye the wool before carding, after carding, or once its been spun?

To carry out this experiment, I prepared three sets of wool to mordant and dye. 1. Washed raw wool 2. Carded wool 3. Spun 2 ply wool.

Carding the washed wool

Carded wool rolags 

Soya Mordant
I decided to use soya milk to mordant my wool as it is what I have previously used to mordant fabric before dyeing. It is the most natural mordanting technique and it is very easy to make/ source. I made my own soya milk as it is more concentrated than shop bought soya milk.

To make the soya milk I just soaked some dry soya beans in water over night then blended it together and sifted it.

Soaking the wool in the soya milk mordant

Findings

For this experiment I used a red onion skin dye as it is quick and easy to make.

(Left to right) Carded wool, 2 ply spun wool, and raw washed wool. From this experiment I found that it is hard to get a fully even colour when dyeing wool. 

 This image shows the wool that was carded before dyeing (left) and the wool that was only carded after dyeing. After dyeing the wool, I let it dry naturally, then carded it all. After dyeing the carded wool it became clear that it would still need to be carded again after dyeing to open up the fibres again ready either to felt with or spin.

 Both carded wool and the raw wool seemed to dye to the same colour, so in the future I would probably choose to mordant and dye the wool straight after washing/ scouring it. This would save me time as there isn't much point in carding the wool prior to dyeing if it just needs to be carded again after dyeing.

EDIT: Since doing this experiment, I have learned that the only really important part of this experiment is the dyeing part. Using soya milk to mordant yarns and fabric coats them in protein to help the dyes turn out brighter and to help the fabric/ yarn take the dye better. As wool is already a protein fibre, there isn't much point using soya milk as a mordant. The best mordant for wool seems to be alum + cream of tartar, however I choose not to use alum so don't mordant wool at all any more. Dyes that are rich in tannins don't tend to need mordants anyway.

🌱Kat Webb🌱